


Knights and Mages

by ShrimpZilla



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 19:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2744015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrimpZilla/pseuds/ShrimpZilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian and Cullen have a friendly chat over a game of chess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knights and Mages

**Author's Note:**

> written for the dragon age kink meme

Dorian frowned as he looked down at the chess board. It wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t be frowning. He should be smiling, gloating, bragging because he was winning. But it just didn’t feel right. The Commander wasn’t playing at his best. He was distracted, staring down at the pieces with distant eyes. It peeved him. If he was going to win he wanted to be able to say he’d beaten the Commander at his best. Not to mention that half the fun of playing against the man was trading quips. Cullen had spent most of this game in silence. Dorian tilted his head as Cullen moved one of his pawns.  
  
“Why, Dorian, you’re playing awfully well today,” he started loudly, imitating the lilt of the other man’s accent. “And might I add that you look handsome. More handsome than usual even.” Cullen looked up from the board with an eyebrow raised in subtle amusement. “Maker,” Dorian continued with a grin, “I think you’ve brought about a revelation in me. I actually like men!” Cullen laughed and shook his head, leaning back in his seat so that he wasn’t hunched over the board. Dorian grasped one of his pieces as he considered where best to move it. He had so many options.  
  
“Sorry. I’m not much a conversation partner today. I’ve got something on my mind.” He tilted his head as Dorian moved his knight. The mage propped his elbows on either side of the board and supported his chin with his hands.  
  
“I know. You just told me. I really can’t blame you, Commander, but really I think it might ruin our friendship. Not to mention the Inquisitor would likely be quite peeved me for stealing you out from under her.” He grinned at the look that passed over Cullen’s face. He had phrased it that way on purpose and could see that the Commander was trying to figure that out. There was a faint pink at the tips of his ears as Dorian suspected he settled on believing it was just a lucky guess. Silly man. He blushed as easily as a little virgin. There was more silence as the Commander contemplated his next move, a little more attention in his eyes now. He blocked the attack that Dorian had been setting up and then brought his attention back up to the mage’s face.   
  
“Do you love him?” He asked. Dorian’s grin faded at the earnest tone in the soldier’s voice. That was a fault of the dear Commander. Also so serious. A shame, really, since he wasn’t an unattractive man when he let himself indulge in the act of smiling.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Iron Bull,” Cullen elaborated. Dorian quickly moved a pawn without much thought. He was irked by the question. Irked that his personal life was so blastedly out in the open thanks to Bull’s lack of discretion. Cole hadn’t helped much either.   
  
“No, I gathered who the ‘him’ was but the point of the question itself escapes me.” He sighed as he saw the move he should have made, now too late to change. The Commander contemplated the game or at the very least pretended too so as to not meet Dorian’s irritated gaze. “Can’t two people have sex without having to drag words like love into it?” Cullen looked up almost guiltily and Dorian had to remind himself who he was speaking with. The proper gentleman across from him had probably never truly considered casual sex to be something to partake in. Had Cullen really cared about every woman he had bedded? It seemed strange to Dorian and oddly endearing.   
  
“Well, yes, but I, I just…” He moved one of his pieces and took Dorian’s pawn. Inwardly the mage cursed. Cullen held it in his hand, closed his fingers around it as he gathered his breath. “You deserve better than just sex. You’re a good man, Dorian, you don’t need to pretend to be debauched.”

“Isn’t that what people expect? The morally ignorant, vile Tevinter mage? To hear the stories I should be fucking any hole I see regardless of whose it is or what their opinion on the matter is.” He hated that he was snapping but he really couldn’t stop. The Commander hadn’t meant anything by his innocent question, had even complimented him. A good man. A good man by Cullen’s strict standards was likely a better man than Dorian had ever met, ever even tried to be.   
  
“You aren’t those stories,” he answered definitely. He looked at Dorian with that same authoritative gaze that Dorian had seen him give his soldiers when making commands. Apparently to Cullen this wasn’t a matter up for discussion. He found himself smiling at the ex-Templar who he had quite inadvertently become rather fond of.   
  
“Thank you,” he answered in a low, almost embarrassed voice. He glanced down at the game. “You’re a very sweet man, Commander,” he paused as he surveyed the damage done to this winning streak, “if not frustratingly good at chess.” Hesitantly he moved his knight. “I can understand why she’s so in love with you.” All right, so maybe he said it on purpose because he knew the way Cullen would react. Brows raised, eyes wide, mouth open slightly. He watched Cullen swallow, look down at the board and then up again at Dorian.   
  
“Did she… tell you that?” It was so easy to turn him from the stern Commander of the Inquisition’s forces to the bumbling young man Dorian wondered if he had ever been. Or maybe Cullen had only ever been a bumbling young man and the efficient, effective Commander was just an act. When Dorian merely grinned, eyes flicking from the chess board back to Cullen the man frowned a little and moved a piece absently. Hopefully he could get this game back on track. Was it underhanded to do it this way? Maybe. But he was also convinced he had made the man’s day.   
  
“Oh please,” he responded as soon as Cullen had made the move. “I love his hair. I love his shoulders. I love his smile. I love his voice. I love his laugh. I love making Dorian sick with how adorable I am.” His impression of the Inquisitor was not quite as on par with the one of Cullen he had done earlier. He would have to practice. “It doesn’t always take blood magic to read someone’s mind. If she hasn’t said it yet I can’t imagine she’ll be able to contain herself much longer.” He toyed with a pawn, thinking he should move it but unable to make out the strategy that he suspected the Commander had in place. He decided to move it. Fortune favored the bold after all.   
  
“I’ve wanted to say it,” Cullen said in a low voice, “but I just, I don’t, the words don’t come out right.” The way he looked up at him Dorian thought he might just faint from the sheer saccharine sensitivity he saw in the man’s eyes. How did this man become his friend of all the men around?   
  
“You should practice in front of a mirror or something. Make certain you aren’t making any stupid faces or rubbing the back of your neck raw with your Maker damned hand.” He had been watching carefully as Cullen prepared his move. He could see something was being set up here but it wasn’t anything the Commander had tried on him before. He looked up when an idea struck him. “Oh! No. Forget the mirror. Practice on me!” Cullen looked at him with narrowed eyes clearly thinking this was a trap. And, well, it wasn’t not a trap.   
  
“I don’t…” He began. Dorian held up a hand to stop him.   
  
“Roleplayinng is fun. So, I’m her.” He cleared his throat in an attempt to get the voice right and struck his shoulders in a way he had seen her do. Cullen smiled slightly as he watched which told Dorian the stance was more correct than anything else. “Oh, Cullen, I’m so happy we got to do that fantasy of yours of screwing on the war table. Next time be a little less stingy with the spanking.” It took all of the self control he had not to laugh out loud at the look on Cullen’s furiously blushing face.  
  
“She… told you about that?” He stumbled. Dorian shrugged, smiling widely and without any hint of innocence. “Oh Maker’s breath… stingy? She said… I was stingy? I’m not, I mean, I don’t spank.. It’s…” He rubbed at the back of his neck anxiously, caught himself doing it and forced himself to stop. “I don’t think I can do this. You win. I forfeit. I need… to go wash myself.” He looked humiliated enough that he could die. Dorian thought it was hysterical. He almost felt bad for the man. But really, what was a little spanking between consenting adults?  
  
“Oh come now, Commander. It’s either she tells me or she tells Sera.” He moved a piece to encourage the continuation of the game. “Besides, whatever ill chosen words you use I’m sure she’ll happy just to hear it. You do have her at an advantage, you know.” Cullen raised an eyebrow as he moved his own piece. Dorian silently swore. He saw the strategy now and likely it was too late for him to do anything about it. Cursed man.   
  
“How?”  
  
“You know she’s going to say it back.” Cullen smiled brightly and Dorian found that he was smiling as well. Apparently it hadn’t been enough that he had pushed them together but he would forever be relegated to ensuring that his two best friends stayed content and in stomach sickening love. He had to admit that there were worse roles to play.


End file.
